Friday, January 30, 2009

Hell’s Kitchen - Recap & Review - Day One

Hell’s KitchenDay One

Original Air Date: Jan 29, 2009

Kara – TwoCents Staff Writer kara@thetwocentscorp.com

Risotto, scallops, raw meat. Messing up these things are the three fastest and most common ways to get eliminated from Hell’s Kitchen and this new group of chefs prove that they too can mess up those three things just as well, if not worse, than previous contestants. It’s men versus women again in Hell’s Kitchen. The women have decided to name their team The Spice Rack and the men have opted for The Blues Brothers, which is far better, if you ask me. If you’re in it for watching crazy, delusional people that are adamant they can cook even though they absolutely cannot, you will not be disappointed this year.

4 comments:

Risotto, scallops, raw meat. Messing up these things are the three fastest and most common ways to get eliminated from Hell’s Kitchen and this new group of chefs prove that they too can mess up those three things just as well, if not worse, than previous contestants. It’s men versus women again in Hell’s Kitchen. The women have decided to name their team The Spice Rack and the men have opted for The Blues Brothers, which is far better, if you ask me. If you’re in it for watching crazy, delusional people that are adamant they can cook even though they absolutely cannot, you will not be disappointed this year.

Standouts on the side of Good:Ji – I like Ji. She can cook and has the drive to prove herself since her father runs restaurants and she’s never cooked for him. She also cooked her signature dish perfectly and seems like a nice person. All good things.

Carol – Gordon said she was in the right place, which is always a good thing.

Standouts on the side of Bad:Lacey – I seriously wonder if she’s a Rock of Love case, where she’s clearly only there to be on camera. I actually hope she is because if she’s there for real, she’s delusional. She tanked the signature dish challenge and then said, “That’s not me on a plate.” That was the whole point of the challenge, to express your style and your flavors, so he can get an idea of you. She whines, she says she doesn’t know how to prep her station for service (which I’ve never seen on this show) and finally, after failing miserably, says in her confessional, “For never working on a line, I think I did pretty damn good.” Seriously, she’s crazy.

Colleen – She’s another one in the running for Most Delusional. She runs a culinary school but has never been trained on cooking. Gordon trashes her signature dish and she says, “I teach manners too, Chef.” Yeah, that’s a good plan, talking back to Gordon Ramsay. At service, she adds cheese to Gordon’s lobster spaghetti recipe. I’ve never seen anyone try to alter one of his recipes on purpose. That blew me away. And to add cheese?! Ew. She also managed to mess up the spaghetti and cook what Gordon called the worst risotto he ever tasted in his entire cooking career. That takes skill right there. Don’t you want to sign up for her culinary classes now?

Giovanni – Gordon tells him he “must be the only executive chef in America that can’t cook rice.” That doesn’t bode well. He also tanks during service as he doesn’t know how to be a waiter and is incapable of describing what some of the dishes are to the inquisitive customers. Also, it takes him twenty minutes to put the orders in! What was he doing for all that time?

Danny – He outright says he’s a redneck and tells Gordon he pulled his signature dish “Mahi Gone Bananas” out of the air. He can’t cook scallops and talks back to Gordon.

Seth – Oh, here’s a winner. He goes on about how he has similar styles to Gordon and how he’s eaten in many of Gordon’s restaurants, the usual grandstanding I’m so awesome blah blah blah. Gordon spits out his signature dish and says it’s the worst dish he’s ever tasted. Now, I’ve seen Gordon take on restaurants with health code violations on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, so if you’ve accomplished the worst dish ever, wow.

Who Wins, Who is Nominated and Who Goes Home:Since both teams were terrible in the kitchen, Gordon leaves the decision up to what it says about the servers on the diner comment cards. Giovanni had a 90% disapproval rate and loses it for the men.

In the dorms, Wil nominates himself to make up for his mistake of getting confused on the garnish station resulting in everyone else coming over to help him. Seth, who tried to serve torn up, badly cooked lamb at service, doesn’t know why he’s nominated and at elimination, his teammates tell Gordon it’s because Seth doesn’t care. Wil does care, so much so that Robert is willing to go up in Wil’s place.

Unfortunately, Gordon sends Wil home, despite him having a passion for cooking and not being a total jerk like Seth. To send someone home whose signature dish tasted but didn’t look good and keep someone who cooked the worst thing Gordon has ever eaten doesn’t make anyone sense. I don’t agree with it at all but sometimes I think it’s a case of who makes for better television. It’s a shame but that’s reality TV for you.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t know why people come on this show and think they have nothing to learn from Gordon Ramsay. These chefs, and for some of them, I use the term loosely, get angry when he criticizes them. Sure, sometimes he’s loud and rude but one of the contestants is winning a job in a big time restaurant and a cash prize on top of that and the majority of them don’t know how to cook something that doesn’t taste terrible!

So, who are the standouts so far in your mind? Is there anyone you just can’t stand? Are any of you willing to place bets on who you think will win already? I’m saying Ji. I have a good feeling about her. Let me know your TwoCents in the comments!

Oh, I TOTALLY agree about sending poor Wil home, but I saw it coming a mile away. Every time I've ever seen anyone nominate themselves in any sort of "talent" based reality tv show, they are always the ones eliminated. I get it in theory: you take two relatively balanced people skill-wise, and the one that nominates himself is less driven. However in this case, Will was just being a good guy. Shame shame.

Anyway, I've never watched this show before, and am a long time fan of shows Top Chef/Iron Chef/etc. I have to say I was utterly amazed at how terrible the talent was overall, but it seems like the draw of this show is the train wreck of Ramsay yelling at people. Are the previous four seasons like this talent-wise? Yikes.

Anyway, I'm watching this season for the first time because Carol is from my town! They're having viewing parties for her when it airs and everything. So far, things look great for her! I can't watch to actually see her cook! (I'm getting ready to watch episode two right now!)

There have been some pretty talented chefs on the show -- they just tend to get outnumbered by the bad ones. I can think of Michael from Season 1 and Rock from Season 3(?) as examples. Then you wonder how people like Aaron from Season 3 ever made it on the show to begin with, so it's a mixed bag.

I watched Top Chef (well, up through TC3: Miami - these last two seasons just haven't engaged me at all, and losing Gail for Toby Young made he cringe) and a lot of Iron Chef, and I am a Hell's Kitchen fan. I think the difference is HK is clearly made for drama. Gordon is confrontational and he's tough, and they pick some contestants that seem to be made for him to jump on. If you can enjoy it as half cooking and half drama, it's a pretty entertaining show.

JD, I've got to agree with Brittany about Hell's Kitchen being about drama. Hell's Kitchen takes place over about two weeks and honestly, I think if you're going to walk away with a restaurant and a quarter of a million dollars after two weeks, you should get yelled at a bit just to make sure you sort of earn it.

The people who make it to the end of Hell's Kitchen usually do have some talent. Maybe not as much as the Top Chef contestants but the HK chefs are at various stages in their cooking career and get to learn from Gordon Ramsay. That alone is a big deal for a lot of chefs or should be.